LIBRARY 

OF  THE 

University  of  California. 

GIFT  OF" 

Class 

Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2007  with  funding  from 

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http://www.archive.org/details/bookbindingsofraOOIethrich 


The 

Bookbindings 

of 

Ralph  Randolph  Adams 

by 
Arnold  Lethwidge 


New  York 

Privately  Printed 

1904 


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T\  B  R  A  #7 

or  THE 

UNIVERSITY 

or 
&ALIFOFM& 


RALPH    RANDOLPH    ADAMS 
From  a  pencil  sketch  by  Mrs.  Adams 


T^HE 


BOOKBINDINGS 


OF 


RALPH    RANDOLPH    ADAMS 


AN   APPRECIATION 


BY 


ARNOLD     LETHWIDGE 


NEW  YORK 

PRIVATELY  PRINTED 

1904 


THE   LITERARY  COLLECTOR   PRESS 
GREENWICH,  CONNECTICUT 


BOOKBINDINGS 

OF 

RALPH  RANDOLPH  ADAMS 

OOME  YEARS  AGO  Mr.  Ralph  Randolph  Adams, 
whose  bookbindings  form  the  subject  of  this 
brief  appreciation,  bound  some  books  for  himself, 
just  for  the  pleasure  he  found  in  the  occupation. 
Soon  he  found  that  he  could  bind  a  book  as  well  as 
any  professional;  so  to  the  enjoyment  of  making 
beautiful  bindings  he  presently  added  the  satisfaction 
of  making  a  living  by  it.  He  established  himself  in 
the  profession  of  binding  books,  and  has  made  his 
way  straight  to  the  top. 

He  was  never  content  to  keep  to  the  paths  of  the 
average  binder.  He  could  produce  as  substantial 
and  artistic  a  tooled  binding  as  the  next  man,  and 
he  took  much  pride  in  the  quality  of  his  work.  His 
inlaid  bindings  were  carefully  done,  after  the 
methods  of  his  predecessors  and  contemporaries. 
But  his  energ3r  could  not  stop  at  that.  He 
continued    to   experiment   and    study,    with   leathers 


122355 


BOOKBINDINGS  OF  RALPH  R.  ADAMS 

and  cements  and  ideas,  getting  results  that  were 
better  or  worse,  learning  from  successes  and  failures. 
He  contemplated  the  experiences  of  the  early  binders, 
in  the  use  of  mosaic.  In  the  old  cities  of  Europe — 
Venice,  Vienna,  Florence,  Paris — in  the  youthful 
days  of  the  binder's  art,  men  had  attempted  in 
leathers  the  mosaic  that  was  so  universally  used  in 
tiles,  precious  metals  and  other  decorative  materials. 
They  fitted  together  their  pieces  of  leather  and  so 
formed  designs  of  much  beauty;  but  soon  the  paste 
that  joined  the  pieces  would  lose  its  adhesive 
properties.  Then  the  leather,  no  longer  held  in 
place,  would  shrink.  The  joints  opened,  the  edges 
curled,  and  the  book  became  as  sorry  a  sight  as  the 
hypocritical  dame  who  encountered  the  magic 
Mantle  of  Virtue  in  the  old  ballad  — 

When  she  had  taken  the  mantle 

With  purpose  for  to  wear, 
It  shrunk  up  to  her  shoulder 

And  left  her  back  all  bare. 

In  fact,  no  one,  in  those  days,  seems  to  have  hit 
upon  any  process  for  the  preservation  of  leather 
mosaic  work.  So  the  binders  got  around  that 
difficulty  by  putting  the  book  into  a  full  leather 
binding,  then  paring  other  leathers  thin,  cutting 
them  out  with  scissors,  and  veneering  the  design 
onto  the  binding.  This  "onlaid"  process  has  been 
used  from  that  day  to  this,  by  the  best  binders  and 


BOOKBINDINGS  OF  RALPH  R.  ADAMS 

the  worst,  and  is  so  universally  known  as  " inlay" 
that  one  involuntarily  connects  that  term  with 
veneering,  rather  than  with  the  unused  mosaic 
process. 

The  onlaid  binding  has  been  developed  to  its 
highest  possibilities,  and  the  master  craftsmen, 
Trautz-Bauzonnet  supreme  among  them,  have  made 
of  it  a  thing  of  rare  beauty  and  considerable 
durability. 

Mr.  Adams  has  done,  and  is  doing,  some  very 
handsome  bindings  with  onlaid  designs.  But  he  has 
always  recognized  the  shortcomings  of  the  process, — 
the  loss  of  the  grain  and  rich  color  in  the  pared 
leather,  the  tendency  to  curl  at  the  edges,  the  lack  of 
sinceritjr  in  the  imitation  mosaic, —  and  he  has  for 
years  experimented  to  overcome  the  difficulties  which 
have  hitherto  prevented  the  perfection  of  the  process 
of  inlaying. 

After  many  experiments,  trials  and  failures,  he 
evolved  a  method  by  which  the  most  perfect  bindings 
are  turned  out.  These  bindings  are  built  up  in  true 
mosaic  fashion,  of  bits  of  leather  accurately  fitted 
together;  or  the  leather  that  covers  the  book  is 
carved  out  in  patterns  with  a  knife,  clean  to  the 
board,  the  cut-out  pieces  being  then  replaced  by 
other  pieces  of  the  desired  color  and  texture,  which 
exactly  fill  the  vacant  spaces,      So  perfectly  do  the 


BOOKBINDINGS  OF  RALPH  R.  ADAMS 

leathers  fit  into  each  other  and  so  firmly  are  they 
united  that  the  hot  tooling  iron  can  follow  the 
seams,  leaving  its  line  of  gold  but  never  making  a 
break  in  the  smooth  surface.  The  effect  is  of  an 
unbroken  leather  side,  till  one  looks  closely  and  sees 
that  the  grain  changes  as  well  as  the  color.  The 
binding  on  a  copy  of  Swinburne's  A  Midsummer 
Holiday  is  a  Moresque  mosaic  in  three  shades  of 
blue.  A  publisher  who  wished  to  reproduce  this 
binding  in  colors,  as  a-  magazine  illustration,  took 
the  book  to  a  veteran  ink-maker.  While  searching 
for  the  proper  inks,  the  expert  explained  that  it 
would  be  impossible  to  reproduce  the  colors  exactly, 
as  the  inks  would  not  give  the  same  effect  on  paper 
that  they  had  produced  on  the  leather.  It  was 
hard  to  persuade  the  old  ink-maker  that  the  binding 
was  made  up  of  over  fifty  pieces  of  leather.  A 
solid  leather  side  printed  in  three  colors  was  his 
only  idea  of  the  process  that  produced  such  an  effect. 
The  skeptic  may  infer  that  this  coherence  is  a 
fleeting  excellence;  that  a  few  years,  existence  in  a 
steam-heated,  gas-lighted  library  will  serve  this 
binding  as  it  did  those  of  the  mosaic  binders  of  old 
But  the  wear  and  tear  of  many  years  may  be 
concentrated  into  systematic  ill-treatment  for  as 
many  days.  When  a  book  has  been  scrubbed  with 
a  stiff  brush,  soaked  in  a  pail  of  water,  and   baked 


BOOKBINDINGS  OF  RALPH  R.  ADAMS 

for  hours  in  an  oven,  it  may  be  presumed  to  have 
passed  through  Book  Purgatory.  If  there  is  any 
thing  left  of  the  book,  it  is  certainly  on  the  way  to 
immortality.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  this  treatment 
means  ruin  and  death  to  the  best  levant  morocco, — 
such  morocco  as  has  survived  the  hard  usage  of 
centuries,  on  old  volumes  bound  before  the  discovery 
of  the  art  of  printing,  and  still  preserves  its  strength 
and  good  looks. 

After  the  drastic  treatment  described,  there  is  not 
much  left  of  even  such  time-ignoring  levant  as  Mr. 
Adams  uses  in  his  bindings  and  in  his  tests.  But 
the  pattern  of  the  mosaic  is  still  preserved,  and  the 
leather  has  crumbled  least  at  the  joints,  where  by 
ordinary  rules  it  should  first  show  weakness.  From 
the  warped  and  worthless  boards,  little  walls  of 
cement,  holding  together  some  fragments  of  the 
leather,  still  arise,  forming  a  network  whereby  the 
bibliopcgic  archaeologist  may  reconstruct  the  original 
binding. 

The  durability  of  the  genuine  mosaic  binding 
having  been  established,  the  skeptic  is  still 
unconvinced.  " What's  the  use?  The  onlaid  method 
is  easier,  cheaper,  and  plenty  good  enough.  Why  a 
new  method?" 

The  conservative  is  usually  inclined  to  let  well 
enough    alone;     and    when   he    has   found    a    "well 

11 


BOOKBINDINGS  OF  RALPH  R.  ADAMS 

enough,"  it  seems  the  safest  thing  to  do  — at  least 
till  the  new  has  proved  its  right  to  supercede  or  to 
live  by  the  side  of  the  old.  Between  these  two 
methods  there  is  no  question  of  a  choice  of  one  that 
will  mean  a  refusal  of  the  other.  Onlaying  is  as 
good  as  it  ever  was,  and  in  the  hands  of  an  artist  it 
is  a  beautiful  and  satisfactory  method  of  producing 
some  results.  Inlaying  by  the  new  method  is  merely 
a  more  beautiful  and  more  satisfactory  way  of 
producing,  not  only  the  same  results,  but  many 
others  which  it  has  always  been  conceded  were  not 
to  be  produced  by  the  old  method. 

The  question  of  price  is  one  that  will  usually 
decide  the  question  of  choice  of  method.  Mr.  Adams 
uses  every  method  in  which  he  has  found  worth  — 
tooling,  onlay,  inlay,  painting,  whatever  has  been 
proved  a  substantial  and  artistic  means  of 
beautifying  the  binding  of  a  book.  The  foundation 
work  is  the  same.  When  the  leather  covers  the 
book,  its  purpose  of  utility  is  served.  The  Jansenist 
binding  is  the  book's  Quaker  garb,  sufficient  for  all 
purposes  except  the  satisfaction  of  the  soul's  love 
of  beauty. 

In  accordance  with  one's  taste  in  ornament,  with 
the  love  he  has  for  the  book  within  the  binding,  and 
with  the  length  of  his  purse,  will  be  the  style  and 
method    of    the   finishing    of   the   binding.      A   little 

12 


BOOKBINDINGS  OF  RALPH  R.  ADAMS 

tooling,  tastefully  designed  and  well  done,  is  all  that 
the  ordinarily  good  book  needs.  The  rank  and  file, 
the  standard  editions,  the  books  for  constant 
reading  or  reference,  are  best  put  into  a  tailor-made 
sort  of  binding,  ready  for  travel  or  work,  but  neat 
and  smart  in  appearance  as  they  stand  in  rows  on 
the  shelves. 

Next  in  order  come  the  books  of  one's  special 
collection,  the  prides  of  his  heart — his  large  paper, 
limited  editions,  handsomely  illustrated,  aristocrats 
among  books.  For  these  let  him  select  unusual 
colors  and  leathers,  and  add  a  symbolic  design  in 
contrasting  colors  and  elaborate  tooling.  Here  let 
the  old  and  well-liked  onlay  serve  to  make  fine  these 
choice  volumes  which  he  delights  to  honor.  They 
may  be  quiet  and  elegant,  or  gayly  resplendent,  and 
if  his  purse  fail  not  too  soon  he  will  be  able  to  do 
the  same  justice  to  enough  of  them  to  make  his 
special  cases  a  gorgeous  show  indeed. 

But  above  all  these,  every  collector  possesses  at 
least  one  "  pearl  of  great  price,' '  the  book  on  which 
he  focusses  all  his  love  of  books.  He  loves  not  the 
others  less,  but  this  one  more.  He  thinks  of  it  more 
than  he  reads  it,  doubtless.  Perhaps  it  is  not  in  the 
least  readable,  even.  But  for  some  good  and 
sufficient  reason,  it  outranks  all  the  rest.  He 
handles   it   reverently    and    displays   it    only   to   the 

15 


BOOKBINDINGS  OF  RALPH  R.  ADAMS 

true  and  tried.  It  is  of  the  blood  royal,  and  royal 
raiment  must  it  wear.  Then  let  him  brush  aside 
all  the  styles  and  methods  of  which  it  can  be  said, 
without  disparagement  either  to  books  or  bindings, 
that  they  were  good  enough  for  the  rest,  but  not  for 
this.  For  this  one  book,  or  for  this  royal  family  of 
books  if  he  is  fortunate  enough  to  acquire  others 
that  are  its  peers,  only  the  best  will  do;  and  the 
best,  in  substantiality  and  in  effectiveness,  is  a 
genuine  mosaic  binding  of  well-dyed,  handsomely- 
grained  leathers  of  equal  thickness,  inlaid  to  the 
boards  and  enriched  with  gold.  Here  shall  no  paring 
knife  destroy  the  grain  of  the  leather.  No  paste  shall 
show  through  thin  surfaces,  dulling  the  colors.  No 
possibility  of  curling  edges  shall  be  tolerated.  All 
shall  be  as  perfect  as  the  hand  of  the  craftsman  can 
make  it,  and  as  the  purse  of  the  collector  can  buy. 

Genuine  mosaic  will  never  be  as  simple  a  process 
as  that  other  method  so  long  known  as  inlay  that 
it  is  hard  to  change  its  name.  It  will  never  be  as 
moderate  in  price,  probably  never  become  cheap 
enough  for  the  collector  of  limited  means  to  own 
more  than  a  few  examples.  That  is  one  of 
the  necessary  concomitants  of  its  excellence.  The 
best  things  are  never  a  free  gift,  unless  of  Nature's 
bestowing,  and  Nature  has  bestowed  morocco 
bindings  on  goats,  not  on  books. 

16 


BOOKBINDINGS  OF  RALPH  R.  ADAMS 

A  few  of  the  bindings  which  Mr.  Adams  has 
produced  in  mosaic  may  well  be  pictured  and 
described  here,  as  it  has  not  been  the  fortune  of  many 
outside  the  great  art  centres  to  see  them.  Most  of 
his  work  has  been  done  to  order  for  private  collectors, 
as  Henry  W.  Poor,  J.  Pierpont  Morgan,  Junius  S. 
Morgan,  and  Gen.  Rush  C.  Hawkins.  In  the  binding 
exhibitions  at  Bonaventure's  and  Scribners',  fine 
specimens  have  been  seen,  and  some  at  the  Arts  and 
Crafts  exhibitions  of  the  smaller  cities. 

The  binding  of  the  Lyra  Elegantiarum,  in  the 
library  of  Mr.  Henry  W.  Poor,  is  a  green  levant 
morocco.  A  narrow  band  of  blue,  inlaid  between 
parallel  lines  of  tooling,  forms  a  frame  for  an 
arabesque  design  of  red  ribbons  connecting  six 
hearts  in  blue.  Golden  lyres  and  butterflies  are 
tooled  on  the  hearts,  and  there  is  enough  tooling 
in  a  delicate  flower  and  leaf  design  to  blend  the 
colors  and  brighten  the  whole  symbolic  design. 

In  the  design  of  Grolier  lines  and  ivy  leaves  and 
branches,  on  Matthew  Prior's  Selected  Poems, 
tooling  and  mosaic  are  mutually  essential  to  the 
carrying  out  of  the  design. 

Ballads  and  Lyrics  of  Old  France  displays  three 
purple  fleur-de-lis,  with  the  lance-like  leaves  in  green, 
supporting  a  white  shield  bearing  the  title,  laid  into 
a    field     of     turquoise    morocco.       The    tooling     is 

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BOOKBINDINGS  OF  RALPH  R.  ADAMS 

subordinated  to  the  delicate  inlay,  and  the  coloring 
is  very  effective.  On  the  doublure,  passion  flowers 
and  leaves  are  inlaid  in  an   original  design. 

In  pictorial  bindings  the  mosaic  method  shows 
its  superiority  in  the  fine  effects  to  be  gained  by 
using  leathers  of  different  textures.  Milton's 
Paradise  Lost  is  bound  in  a  levant  of  finest  grain, 
effacing  itself  in  the  background.  The  Tree  of 
Knowledge  shows  its  gnarled  and  ancient  trunk  in 
a  heavy,  irregular  grain,  against  which  the  skin  of 
the  serpent  is  clearly  defined  in  a  grain  of  another 
quality.  In  the  apples  and  leaves,  too,  the  grain  as 
well  as  the  color    characterizes  the  objects  depicted. 

The  binding  of  At  the  Sign  of  the  Lyre  is  a 
pastoral,  in  all  the  variegated  hues  of  Nature  on  a 
shining  summer  day.  Here  Mr.  Adams  has  called 
in  the  aid  of  stains,  which  color  the  sky  and  the 
flowers,  while  brown,  white,  red,  and  green  leathers 
bear  the  brunt  of  the  color-scheme. 

One  of  the  finest  tooled  bindings  which  the  Adams 
Bindery  has  turned  out  is  that  on  Mr.  J.  Pierpont 
Morgan's  copy  of  Boccaccio's  Life  of  Dante,  which 
is  bound  in  brown  levant  with  a  wide  Grolier 
border,  and  a  central  shield,  the  field  being  well 
filled  with  bands  and  azured  ornaments,  all  in  gold 
tooling.  For  elaborate  richness  the  design  is 
unsurpassable. 

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BOOKBINDINGS  OF  RALPH  R.  ADAMS 

It  is  surprising  how  utterly  the  book-lover  is  at  the 
mercy  of  his  binder,  how  dependent  upon  his  honesty 
and  sincerity.  It  is  easy,  certainly,  to  know  the 
work  of  the  unskilled  artizan,  the  apprentice.  But 
if  a  binder's  wit  has  outgrown  his  conscience  and 
his  industry,  how  he  can  shirk  the  endless  inside 
work  that  is  invisible  to  the  buyer!  How  he  can 
leave  to  careless  helpers  the  sewing,  the  trimming, 
the  handling  of  rare  plates  and  autographs!  How 
he  can  manipulate  the  flimsiest,  cheapest  leather  to 
make  it  pose  as  French  levant!  How  he  can  juggle 
with  paste  and  the  paring  knife  and  turn  out  a 
binding  that  will  look  to  the  amateur,  for  a  time, 
like  the  full-levant,  inlaid  work  of  art  that  it  is  not ! 

It  is  a  delight  to  turn  from  some  binding  such 
as  I  have  described,  to  any  of  Mr.  Adams's  work, 
and  examine  it  in  detail.  These  are  no  weaklings, 
these  handsome  volumes.  They  are  made  to  open 
and  shut,  to  handle  and  to  read.  The  same  high 
quality  of  workmanship  and  material  has  been  put 
into  every  book  that  leaves  the  Adams  Bindery 
The  steps  of  the  inside  work  are  carefully  watched 
by  Mr.  Adams.  The  best  materials  are  supplied  to 
his  assistants  and  nothing  but  the  best  workmanship 
is  tolerated.  The  binding  leathers  are  specially 
selected  and  imported,  only  the  strongest  and  finest 
qualities  being  used.      The  inlaying  is  done  by  Mr. 

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BOOKBINDINGS  OF  RALPH  R.  ADAMS 

Adams  himself,  the  assistant  finishers  have  his 
immediate  supervision. 

The  cost  of  the  leather  —  calf,  pig-skin,  Turkey 
morocco  or  French  levant  —  forms  one  factor 
in  determining  the  cost  of  the  binding.  The 
elaborateness  of  the  finishing — the  tooling,  onlay,  or 
mosaic — is  another.  The  foundation  work  is 
unvarying  in  price  and  quality,  always  of  the  same 
substantial,  skilful  craftsmanship. 

The  designing  of  book  bindings  is  in  itself  an  art, 
and  is  one  too  often  unknown  to  the  binder.  Mr. 
Adams's  own  good  taste  in  design  is  supported  by 
the  artistic  training  and  taste  of  his  wife.  Mrs. 
Adams  is  an  artist  of  much  talent  and  education, 
and  her  interest  in  her  husband's  profession  is  as 
great  as  his  own.  She  collaborates  with  him 
constantly  in  designing  bindings,  sometimes  in 
accordance  with  their  own  ideas,  sometimes  carrying 
out  the  wishes  of  the  owners  of  the  books.  A  few 
of  the  more  elaborately  bound  volumes  bear,  beneath 
the  gilding  of  their  fore-edges,  delicate  designs  and 
scenes  in  water  color  which  are  Mrs.  Adams's  work. 

Mr.  Adams  is  still  a  young  man,  and  the  best  of 
his  achievements  lie  yet  before  him.  He  is  a 
thorough  American,  of  pioneer  Quaker  ancestry,  and 
is  entirely  worthy  of  the  place  he  has  already  made 
for  himself  as  the  representative  American  bookbinder. 

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